Statement From Shaquanda

My name is ShaQuanda Cotton. At the age of 14, I was accused of shoving a hall monitor at Paris High School in Paris Texas. Even though I was the one who was hurt, the school pressed charges against me and put me in alternative school and they wrote me up about three times a day. They had a trial and they used those write-ups as my prior criminal record because I had never been in trouble before. I was sent to prison for up to 7 years. The judge said my mother was a bad mother because she said the school was racist and filed too many complaints. My mother and her friend Brenda Cherry are civil rights activists in a group they helped start called Concerned Citizens for Racial Equality and they helped people who had problems at the school and with the police. I think that’s why they did this to me. I didn’t know what was happening to me. Once in prison I was placed on some narcotics that were not supposed to be given to teenagers. The drugs made me feel like killing myself. My mother and others finally got them to stop giving me the drugs and I felt better but I still cried all the time. I stayed in prison for over a year and I was afraid all the time because the other kids fought all the time and some of them were in there for rape and murder.  First Darwin Campbell from the African American News and Issues did a story about me. And then a reporter from the Chicago Tribune, Howard Witt did a story about me. When people heard about my story, they wanted to help me and they talked about it a lot on the internet and Rickey Smiley lead a big protest at the courthouse and soon after that they let me go home. I want to thank all the people who have helped me and who are still trying to help me. I hope that one day this can be taken off my record because I didn’t shove the aide. I don’t know why they did this to me but I don’t hate them. But I hope they don’t do this to anyone else.

Sincerely,

ShaQuanda Cotton

 

For more information contact us at:

InPDUM Dallas
ATTN: Free Our Children
P.O. Box 785
Cedar Hill, TX
75106

freeourchildren@handsoffshaquanda.org
or call: (214) 646 1907